Time to wake up.

[Guest guest]

Relevant excerpts from the article "Prayer for India" by Ratna Rajaiah in The

New Indian Express of October 13, 2005. It speaks of the need for more to be

done at every level to promote ayurveda.

http://www.newindpress.com/sunday/sundayitems.asp?id=SEL20051013092912&eTitle=Ne\

w+Age+Living&rLink=0

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Last year, America's NCCAM celebrated its fifth anniversary. Five years ago it

was a teeny-weeny Office of Alternative medicine with a teeny-weeny budget of $

2 million dollars. Today that budget is a whopping $123 million. In China,

Vietnam, South and North Korea, traditional medicine has been fully integrated

into the health care system. Chinese traditional medicine and herbs are getting

a serious look in the West because there has been huge investments of money and

mind by the Chinese into serious research to prove its efficacy and to quell

quackery.

 

Taiwan's budget to turn itself into “a traditional Chinese medicine technology

island” by 2006 is $ 100 million. The WHO now has an official policy on TM/CAM,

recognizing that with “over 1/3 of the population in developing countries (like

India) lack access to essential medicines, provision of safe and effective

TM/CAM could be a critical tool to increase access to health care.”

 

Yet in the country that gave the world yoga and Ayurveda, despite the “health

for all” mantra that the then Health Minister, Sushma Swaraj spouted a year ago,

saying that would only be possible through a balance between modern systems of

medicine and traditional systems, Ayurveda, yoga, Siddha etc., still remain

largely either the stuff to attract foreign tourists or the hunting grounds of

quacks and snake oil merchants. Very little is evident in both political will to

make these ancient wisdoms into the inexpensive, easily accessible health care

that they have the potential to be, not only to cure but also to prevent.

 

The report of the standing Committee presented to both houses of Parliament in

August 2004 on the demands of Grants of the Department of AYUSH had these

damning findings to express “serious concern” about. The Central Government

Health Scheme (CGHS) Ayurveda Hospital in Delhi has no Medical Superintendent

and has only 32 of its 64 posts filled. Of the Rs. 60 lakhs sanctioned in 2003-4

to conduct a survey on the usage of traditional medicines in CGHS dispensaries,

only 7.6 lakhs were used. Subsequently the budget was reduced to 6 lakhs in

2004-5. Setting up of a National Ayurvedic Hospital in Delhi was one of the new

Schemes proposed in 2000-1. After 4 years, the only noteworthy achievement in

this ambitious Project is the change in the name from National Ayurvedic

Hospital to All India Institute of Ayurveda, New Delhi. The 2004-5 budget for

yoga was a grand sum of 11.5 crores.

 

The question, then is: when will we, the Rip Wan Winkle of Asia's ancient and

vast wisdom of wellness and healing wake up?